I know from many testimonies that coming out as an atheist is much more difficult for African Americans than any other minorities (with the exception of Hispanics perhaps), and a lot of it has to do with this perception that religion is the glue that holds their communities together. I've always wondered why anyone thought it was acceptable to be indoctrinated to believe in the religion slave masters forced ...

Religious people are hilarious. How many times have we been accused of being "just another religion"? I imagine just stating this baseless canard must be a way for them to feel comforted by the idea that atheists base their beliefs on the same dogmatic mechanism they use. Unfortunately for them, it's ludicrously easy to demonstrate just how wrong this idea is. I fell upon an article this morning claiming th ...

A man who dresses in red robes and calls himself by a special name believes individuals who reject the notion of unsupported supernatural claims are irrational. Walter Brandmuller may never have played Dungeons & Dragons, but if he did, he might realize there is nothing particularly special about his title; definitely not enough to pretend to know anything about objective reality. When, however, has tha ...

Do you remember the Daniel Dennet lecture a few months ago regarding a pilot study he was conducting about atheist priests still giving sermons? If you never watched it and have an hour to kill, I highly recommend going back and checking it out. If you want the short version of what the hell that must be like, check out this article: The main theme seems to be: "I can't quit my job because I'm an expert in ...

I'll never grow tired of old, conservative gas-bags going on about how atheism is either dead, on it's way out, or, as this crusty old white dude said, “a joke". Because he's convinced only an invisible male patriarchal God is the proper explanation as to the existence of the Universe, columnist William Murchison believes the recent remarks of Stephen Hawking, claiming the Universe did not need a supernatur ...

It's nice to see how people make up their own mind about the lack of any evidence of revealed religions. It doesn't take a genius to reject God: it just takes common sense and intellectual integrity! ...

Someone sent me a link to this video and wanted me to answer his 5 challenges. Since I'm relatively bored and feeling productive, I though I'd give it a try. 1) Is chance the same as "God in the Gaps" when explaining the origin of life? If you can't accept probability and chance, then you can't accept reality. It would be swell if we lived in a deterministic Universe, but the simple fact is we don't. Mutati ...

I took a few days off in light of my recent birthday, and while I was away, I received a ton of email concerning a study done by evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa that linked IQ with atheism, liberalism, and monogamy. I figured I should probably talk about it a bit. Kanazawa believes the reason this is true is human beings are designed by natural selection to be more conservative (and therefore mor ...

I don't like religion, but like most atheists I know, the thought of burning down churches is rather repugnant. There's no need to create more religious martyrs by making it seem as though their beliefs are under attack. My preferred kind of "assault" is always verbal and intellectual, and I expect any other "Good Atheist" to follow suit. Of course, there's no way to know if every single non-believer out th ...